


Star Child

by Zaffie



Series: Nova [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Didn't Write Them Down, Don't Read This One First, F/F, F/M, Gen, Here's What's Up, I Created A Bunch Of Weird Radioactive Life, I Had Great Tags For This A Week Ago, I Mean I Went Full Out With The Soap Opera Plots Here, I Wrote It Before I Watched Things, It Was So Much Fun, Kay I Did It Bye Guys, Like I Never Left, Not A Fix-It AU, Oh Look I'm Back, Okay So This Is An AU S5, Spacekru Crashed On Earth, TV Medicine!, TV Science!, Watch Nova Be Cute, Watch Them Battle, Watch Them Bond, Watch Them Build Shelters, deep breath, this is the second in a series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-08-20 04:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16548995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: Spacekru have made it back down to Earth and things aren't even close to over.Sequel to 'Taking A Village'. AU set somewhere in early S5.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Very glad to be back. I have been hiding from this fandom until I caught up on S5 and all I wanted to do while I was watching was read The 100 fics and it was stressful.   
> OMG okay. I legit just finished Damocles and I haven't even read the Toni photo recap yet so you can tell I'm very excited to get straight to posting this fic. I am very excited about posting this fic.  
> At least, I WAS, until I saw the last like fifteen minutes of that episode, holy CRAP, what the hell.  
> I shall resume my rant at the bottom of the chapter. It will contain spoilers. Be warned.   
> No spoilers in the actual content of the fic since I wrote all of this chapter before I watched S5. (And the next couple of chapters. After that we'll see.)

     They hit Ground so hard that the straps holding her down break and Nova goes flying through the air, bouncing and tumbling over and over and over until she finally stops. Her whole body hurts so bad. Her nose is clogged from crying and she can only breathe through her mouth in fast, sharp gasps. The glass in front of her face is cracked all over and it makes everything blurry.

     Nova tries to sit up, but she’s too big and heavy inside the suit. She tries to call out, but her chest hurts too much for her to speak. The side of her mouth stings and she tastes blood. She’s stuck. Stuck tight inside this suit. She can’t get out, she can’t see, she can’t hear anything except her breath rasping in the helmet.

     Tears well up and Nova blinks furiously. She can’t stop them. The tears run down her cheeks and inside her ears, cold and wet and gross. Her nose leaks snot and she can’t wipe it. All Nova wants is to get out of this suit and find her Mama.

     Then some _thing_ grabs her shoulder and Nova screams, because suddenly she remembers all of the stories about the Ground. Her screams fill up the space inside the helmet, too much, too loud. There are snake-monsters and monkey-monsters and angry two-headed deer-monsters which gobble up little girls for breakfast. It’s holding Nova’s arm really tight, and it could be a fierce _Trikru_ warrior, or an ice bear, or a robot which flies and shoots bullets.

     Her helmet makes a click as it’s pulled hard to the side and then someone pulls it off and throws it away. Light rushes in and Nova closes her eyes tight, both against the blinding glare and so that she doesn’t have to watch when the monster bites off her head.

     A soft, warm hand touches her cheek, and then Harper’s voice above her yells, “She’s over here!”

     Nova opens her eyes the tiniest bit. “Harper?” she whispers.

     “Are you okay, baby girl? What hurts?”

     Nova whimpers. “Everything.”

     “It’s okay. Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” Harper says, and then she’s gone.

     Nova lies on her back on the Ground and stares up.

     Above her, it’s green. Just like they said, green the same as food, but brighter. Bigger. Way, way bigger. The green stretches so high up, higher than Nova ever knew anything could go. In the spaces between the green, there’s something bright-pale-big and kinda like Murphy’s wrong-colour eyes. A light shines up there, winking down at Nova through the green, the same as when the lights in the corridors get turned on full-power.

     It’s so big. Nova can’t see where it ends. She twists her head, side-to-side, and there’s brown, too, and more greens, so many different types. Up above, the trees make whispering sounds, like the _shh-shh-shh_ of static when the Clarke is on.

     Clarke is down here. Madi is down here. They live here. This is the Ground. Nova lifts her too-big space-suit gloves to wipe the snot and tears off her face and then slowly, slowly, with everything hurting, she sits up.

     She’s on the _Ground_.

 

 

     “I found her,” Harper calls in through the twisted metal of the rocket hatch. “She’s okay.”

     Bellamy blows out a huge breath and lets his head drop onto Raven’s shoulder. He can feel her relaxing, too, tension draining from her as she slumps in her seat.

     “She’s conscious, she spoke to me, and she moved her legs,” Harper adds. “I’m not sure about getting her to walk just yet, but I’ll go back and sit with her now.”

     “Thank you,” Bellamy says.

     Raven grits her teeth and yanks at the harness again. “Tell Nova I won’t be long,” she says.

     “Okay.” There’s a scuffling sound as Harper wriggles away from the hatch and then sunlight streams back in through the hole she’d blocked with her body.

     “Bellamy,” Raven says in a low voice, “get me out of here.”

     “I will.” He’s not sure _how_ , though. Raven’s harness is pulled tight around her body, crushing her against the chair. They’ve managed to get her helmet off but that’s as far as it’s gone.

     The landing had been a disaster. The modified straps of Nova’s harness had broken right as Raven dropped the landing gear. Watching the little girl rebound off the walls had been the worst thing Bellamy had seen in years. He’d been sure, when the glass in her helmet cracked and turned opaque, that she was dead in there.

     Even a five-year-old who barely weighed more than thirty pounds had been enough to throw off the delicate balance of the landing. The rocket had upended with a screech of metal on rock as the nose tore off. Nova had been thrown straight out through the gap and the rocket had come to rest at a 45-degree angle, with the nose smashed against the mountainside. The hatch had been damaged; it opens, but not far enough for any of them except Harper to get through. Bellamy had given her a leg up and she’d squeezed out and gone to find Nova.

     “Echo, sit down before you fall down,” Emori says sharply.

     Bellamy turns to check on them. Echo is bleeding - a lot; there’s bright red blood clumping in her hair, running down her face and soaking into the neck of her rad-suit. Emori is practically wrestling her back into her seat. Behind them, Monty is still struggling to free Murphy’s leg from the fallen section of the nosecone. There are tree-branches in here, too, as well as the chunks of broken metal and rock. The already tiny cockpit feels even smaller. There’s a fine dust floating everywhere, settling on all of the smooth surfaces. It seems like every time Bellamy breathes, he chokes on it.

     “Cut it,” Raven says, pulling him back to the task at hand.

     Bellamy shakes his head. “It’s too close to your skin. I can’t get anything under it.”

     “I know that,” she says. “Cut it where it joins to the seat.”

     “Are you serious? That’s four connection points. Two of them are right next to your _neck_ , Raven. If my hand slips even a little…”

     “I don’t care,” she says. “I have to get Nova. I can fit through the hatch, Bell. Just get me out of this damn seat.”

 

 

     Harper bends down over Nova. She feels the pull in her lower back when she moves; a stab of pain sharp enough to take her breath away, followed by a deep, dull aching. She’s gonna have one hell of a bruise.

     “Baby,” she says, brushing Nova’s tangled hair back from her face. “Let’s get you out of that suit.”

     There are tear tracks marking the little girl’s cheeks and blood at the corner of her mouth. That worries Harper at first, until she gently pulls down Nova’s lower lip and gets a look at the damage. It’s a loose tooth, that’s all, one of Nova’s tiny white front teeth knocked and sitting sideways in the gum. She’s five. She’d be losing them soon anyway, Harper thinks.

     Carefully, Harper opens the velcro bindings around Nova’s neck and wrists. She pulls off the gloves first. Nova jumps and winces when Harper touches her left arm.

     “Which part hurts?” Harper asks.

     “Here.” Nova hovers her hand over her forearm; above her wrist and below her elbow. “It hurts a _lot_ , Harper.”

     “Okay. We’ll go slow.”

     Harper peels the suit down Nova’s skinny little shoulders, sliding her arms out one at a time, steady and smooth. The boots pop right off and Harper helps to tug the bottom of the suit down over the girl’s legs, until the suit is gone and it’s just Nova sitting there, wearing so many layers of clothes that she looks twice as thick as usual.

     “There you are, baby,” Harper says.

     “My arm hurts,” Nova whimpers. “And my eyes.”

     “Yeah it’s bright down here. We’ll fix that soon, okay? Let’s get some of these blankets off and I’ll look at your arm.”

     “I want Mama.”

     “She’s coming, Nova. I promise.” Harper leans forward, ignoring the twinge in her back. She uses her fingers to wipe some of the sticky tears away from Nova’s cheeks. “Everything’s going to be fine,” Harper says, looking Nova right in the eyes. “Do you believe me?”

     Shakily, Nova nods. “Uh huh.”

     “Good girl.”

     Unwrapping the layers is slow. They come off one at a time, and Harper has to be careful, because Nova cries when her arm moves. She cries again when Harper touches her chest, so that’s something else to look at. Harper hadn’t realised how many blankets they’d all managed to dump on her before they evacuated the Ring. She remembers grabbing a couple extra, just for Nova. It looks like the rest of them had done the same.

     “It’s cold,” Nova says when she’s squirmed out of her oversized orange sweater. “I want the sweater back on.”

     “Can I see your arm first?”

     Nova considers this, chewing on her lip, arm cradled against her chest. Finally she says, “Okay, but _don’t_ touch.” She holds the arm out.

     “I might need to touch it just a little, baby,” Harper says, but then she looks and no. No, she doesn’t need to touch it. The arm is broken. There’s a slight but definite S-shaped curve to the forearm. Harper swallows against the sick feeling rising in her throat and then she gently tucks the arm back against the safety of Nova’s body.

     “Will you make it stop hurting?”

     Harper hesitates. Nova’s eyes are wide and round and hopeful. She trusts them - all of them - because no one’s ever let her down before. Harper isn’t going to be the first.

     “I will,” she says, “I promise. But it might take me a little while.”

     “Can’t you make it stop hurting _now?_ ”

     “No, Novie, I’m sorry. Not yet.”

     “I want Mama.”

     “I know,” Harper says. “Do you think you can walk? How do your legs feel?”

     Nova moves them experimentally. “They feel good.”

     “If you can walk with me, we can go and talk to Mama.”

     “I can walk with you.”

     Harper smiles. “Okay then.”

 

 

     Echo’s head throbs in time with the pounding of her heart.

     “Don’t move,” Emori tells her. She puts a knee on each side of Echo’s hips, getting as close as she can in the tight quarters of the rocket, and then presses a pad of cloth down on her forehead _hard_.

     Echo white-knuckles through the pain, trying to keep her jaw loose and her breathing even. Emori has both hands shoved up against the wound; one real hand and one not. Seeing the mutation still bothers Echo, but not the same way that it used to. Not as much as the blood flowing down her face does. She’s not going to complain.

     Emori pulls the cloth away for a second and then clicks her tongue and presses it back harder. “You’ll need stitches,” she says.

     “That can wait. We need to get out of here first.”

     “You’ll get the blood sickness.”

     “Not today,” Echo says. “For today I’ll be fine. You don’t have to waste time with me.”

     Emori says, “Hm,” but she does raise her eyes and glance around the rocket. “No one else needs my help.”

     “You could get out,” Echo says. It’s been weighing on her mind since they crashed. The gap at the bottom of the door was wide enough for Harper. Emori and Raven aren’t too much bigger. Echo, though - she’s taller. Her shoulders are broader. If Monty can’t fit, then Echo doesn’t think she’ll be able to. But Emori has a chance.

      “And do what?” Emori asks. “Sit around playing eye spy?” She snorts. “If you want to hold your own face together, Echo, I’m happy to let you try.”

     “Don’t leave Harper and Nova out there alone.”

     “Nova’s okay. Harper said she was talking.”

     Echo shakes her head, dislodging Emori’s hands. “No, that’s not what I mean.”

     “Stop moving.” Emori grabs Echo’s chin with her twisted claw and holds her face still. “What do you mean, then?”

     “Bellamy thinks that because the people are gone, the Earth is safe,” Echo says.

     “Yeah? So what?”

     “So I think he’s wrong.”

     “Typical _Azgeda_ ,” Emori says, halfway to laughing. “Always looking for an enemy.”

     “I’m serious, Emori.” Echo’s eye stings as blood drips into it and she reaches up angrily to wipe it away.

     “Right now, I’m more worried about you. I can see your _skull_ through this cut.”

     The rocket shifts with a creak and a groan of metal. Pain flares in Echo’s temple as the movement jolts her head. She keeps her breathing relentlessly steady. The pain ebbs and flows and she gives herself a moment - an instant - to feel it all before she tamps it down.

     “Emori,” she says. “We’re safe inside this ship. There are plenty of people in here. Out there? It’s only the two of them.”

     Echo can’t be selfish. She can’t. It’s been trained out of her over the span of her lifetime. Always think of others first. Always put her people above herself. Always make her loyalty to others the priority. It’s unthinkable for her to go against those core beliefs.

     Emori’s core beliefs are the opposite. She’s spent her life learning to take care of herself. Learning that no one else will. But she’s staying in here with her fingers splayed across Echo’s forehead, holding the lifeblood inside. And all Echo is doing is telling her to leave.

     “Please.”

     “What?” Emori frowns, leaning down until her eyes are just above Echo’s own. “You never say please. Are you _koken?_ ”

     “No,” Echo says, even though her head is pounding so hard she can barely hear her own voice and she just might be going crazy after all. “Just…” _afraid._ The word trembles on the tip of her tongue and she knows she could say it; knows it would work.

     It’s a lie. And for some reason that’s stopping her.

     “Just what?”

     “I want you to take care of them,” Echo says. “You know what you’re doing out there. They don’t.”

     There’s a long, long pause. Long enough that Echo’s sure she’d made a mistake. Being honest had been the wrong move, and now-

     “I’ll go,” Emori says. “Then the rest of you will think of some stupid way to get out of here right afterwards and it won’t even matter. Okay? I’ll go.”

     Echo closes her eyes. “Okay,” she repeats.

 

 

     “Ow, fuck, stop,” Murphy says. “You’re gonna pull my fucking knee off.” He curls forward, cramped and uncomfortable, and shoves Monty’s hands away from his leg.

     “Do you want to get out of here, or not?”

     “I want to get out of here with two goddamn legs,” Murphy snaps. He’s tired, and angry, and sore. He’s fucking furious that they’ve gotten down to Earth - they’ve survived space, they’d made their own fuel, they’ve survived the landing - and now they’re stuck in this tiny, shitty rocket. It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is. The whole situation is ridiculous.

     Monty brushes the hair out of his eyes. “Murphy, I have to pull to get your leg out. What’s so hard to understand?” He sighs. “Look, dude… Harper’s on her own out there. Do you get that? All I want to do is get you and Raven free and figure out some way to go help her.”

     “Why?” Murphy pants. “You worried she’ll never come back to your sorry ass the second she realises you’re _not_ the last guy on Earth?”

     “Okay,” Monty says. “You’re an asshole and I’m going to get Bellamy to deal with you.” He stands up, his knee knocking against Murphy’s head, and takes the couple of steps which get him to the other side of the rocket.

     Dimly, Murphy can hear Echo and Emori arguing about something. Bellamy and Raven too, their voices all blending together and bouncing off the walls. They’re all frustrated. They’re all in pain.

     It’s weird, because he’d thought that once they got to the Ground they’d feel more like a cohesive unit. Not just a group of people thrown together in space by chance, trapped in the fishbowl of the Ring, too close and too tight for any kind of privacy or peace. Up there, Murphy had wanted to do his own thing more than ever. He’d been desperate for a break from the rest of them. It was peaceful - he wasn’t an engineer - they didn’t need his help. That was kind of the line his mind had followed.

     Down here, though, Murphy had always assumed that they’d be struggling for survival in an entirely different way. That they’d really _need_ each other, not just run for Raven or Monty whenever anything broke down. Maybe on the Ground Murphy would get another chance to prove himself.

     Except that’s not what’s happening. No one needs him; he’s just trapped under a sheet of metal so heavy that it feels like it’s already made him an amputee. All Murphy is doing is waiting for help and picking fights for no reason.

     Monty’s right. He is an asshole.

     Dropping his head into his hands, Murphy rubs at his eyes and groans. It shouldn’t be _this hard_ for him to just get his shit together and say a couple of thank yous.

     “Hey,” Emori says. The weight of her hand is suddenly heavy on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

     “Having the time of my life.” Murphy looks up at her. “You?”

     “I’m going to go outside. To find Harper.”

     There’s a drying smear of blood on her cheek. Murphy wants to reach up and wipe it off, but she’s too far away from him.

     “What,” he says, “did Monty talk you into it?”

     “Echo, actually.”

     Murphy shrugs. “Don’t stay out too long,” he says. “I might need you in here to stop everyone killing me.”

     “You could always try being nice, John.”

     He laughs, and then grimaces when the movement tugs at his leg. “Now where’s the fun in that?”

     Emori doesn’t smile. “I’ll be back soon.”

     “Stay safe,” Murphy tells her.

     “I will.”

     She squeezes his shoulder, but doesn’t bend to kiss him. She’s pissed then, Murphy thinks. He’s not entirely sure why. It doesn’t matter. She’ll be back soon, and then they’ll have plenty of time to talk whatever _this_ is over while they figure out how to find Polis and Clarke.

     He watches Emori leave through half-closed eyes, exhausted with the pain and the constant stress of the past few hours. God, Murphy really needs a place to sleep. He doesn’t even care if it’s out there in the radioactive dirt. He just really, really wants all of it to stop for a little while. Everything.

     Bellamy shuffles across the tiny space and ducks down beside Murphy. “Are you okay?”

     “I’m fucking fantastic,” Murphy snaps. He gestures to his pinned leg. “Can’t you tell?”

     “Oh my god, Murphy, get over it,” Bellamy says. “I don’t have time to deal with you being a dick right now.”

     “Sorry to ruin your day.”

     Up in the corner, Murphy can see Emori still. It’s a squeeze for her to get out of the hatch. She twists her body, one arm first, sliding in at an angle. Her shoulders tilt and catch at the entrance. For a second she’s stuck, snagged on something that Murphy doesn’t see, and then she jerks forward again and keeps going. She squirms further and catches again at her hips, but only for a second. Harper must be pulling from the other side, because Emori shoots forward fast, hips and legs and feet and then she’s gone.

     Murphy lets out a breath that he hadn’t meant to hold. She’s gone.

     Bellamy thumps Murphy’s back. “Hey. She’ll be fine.”

     “Yeah, duh,” Murphy says. “I know.” But he doesn’t take his eyes off the hatch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler-freeeeeeee and also yikes I am gonna catch up to what I've already got written so fast :( Don't get used to this update pace, guys.

     The last thread of the harness breaks faster than either of them were expecting. Monty’s hand jerks straight through and the heavy, jagged piece of metal that he’s holding smacks against Raven’s bad knee.

     “Oh man, I’m sorry,” he says. “Are you okay?”

     “Fine.” Raven keeps her teeth pressed together. The pain radiates up her thigh, spikes at her hip and claws around the side of her body. Her lower back burns. She needs to get out of this damn seat.

     “Two down, two to go,” Monty says.

     “Yeah.” Raven forces a breathy, unsteady laugh. “Just don’t let your hand slip on these next ones, okay?” Because then instead of her knee, it’ll be her neck that he hits. And the metal is sharp. Really sharp.

     Raven tries not to think about it, but there’s not much else to think about. She keeps her eyes fixed forwards and imagines a way out of the rocket. The cargo bay had taken most of the impact during their landing. Bellamy had taken a look down there and said that it was even worse than up here. Considering that there are tree trunks and rocks the size of Raven’s head in here, that’s saying something.

     So. Cargo bay is a no-go. The external hatch won’t open any further than it is already. That is; wide enough for Harper, just barely wide enough for Emori. Probably wide enough for Raven. She hopes. It’s possible that there’s a way to pry it open from outside. With just the three of them, getting enough force seems possible, but very unlikely. Not with Raven’s shit leg. They’re strong, sure, but the leverage Raven is thinking of needs weight, not strength. And they’ve all been eating algae for five years. They weigh even less now than they had on crappy Ark rations.

     There’s glass up there but it’s designed to be space-safe. The metal is probably easier to break. If they had any kind of tools, they could carve out a space beside the hatch. Except the only thing even _close_ to a tool is Echo’s sword and that’s not going to cut through metal.

     “I wonder how much water we have left,” Monty says quietly.

     Raven doesn’t move, but she laughs on a shaky exhale. “Wow. I hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet.”

     “What were you stuck on?”

     “Getting out of here,” Raven says. “I can’t think of a way to widen the hatch. What about you?”

     “Finding water,” he says. “Whatever we’ve got in the cargo bay that didn’t leak on landing can’t be enough to get us to a safe drinking source. Not unless we’re insanely lucky.”

     The third strap breaks and Monty ducks around to Raven’s left side and starts work on the fourth.

     “Well, you know,” she says, “there’s a first time for everything.”

     Monty stops still, halfway through the strap. “Did you hear that?”

     “What?”

     “I heard something.”

     “Yeah,” Raven says, “but what?”

     “I - I don’t know. A rumbling. Something. It was really deep, really low.”

     Raven spins through options in her mind. “Growling? An animal?”

     “I only heard it for a second.”

     “Hey!” Raven yells. “Shut up!”

     Her voices bounces off the walls of the cockpit and gradually, the conversations taking place behind them falter and stop. Bellamy’s footsteps ring out on the metal as he comes back to them.

     “What?”

     Raven shrugs. “Monty heard something.”

     “What’d you hear?” Bellamy asks.

     “I don’t know,” Monty says.

     Raven groans in frustration. “That’s why I told everyone to be quiet, dummy.”

     Silence falls over the cockpit. Just a lot of fast, shallow breathing - and, distantly, something groaning. An impossibly low sound. Raven almost _feels_ it more than she hears it; a rumbling deep, deep down somewhere beneath them.

     From outside the rocket, a woman screams.

     Monty shouts, “Harper!”

     Echo murmurs, “ _Bouda daun_ ,” and then she yells it, “ _Bouda daun!_ Rocks, falling rocks. Get away from the hatch!” She stumbles to her feet, staggers, and drops to one knee. “The mountain is coming down!”

     “Shit,” Raven says. Her seat is too close to the hatch. She can’t move. Monty is frozen beside her and there’s a wild kind of desperation in his eyes, but he’s not sawing at the strap.

     Bellamy pushes him away. “Stick with Murphy!” he yells.

     Raven says, “Bell-”

     He cuts her off. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

     She’s not okay, not close to okay. There’s no _time._

     Bellamy is shrugging off his jacket, like that’ll help. He spreads it out above their heads, ducking down beside Raven. Shielding them with the flimsy material. She wants to tell him to leave her. Almost does it, too. But she won’t. He wouldn’t listen, anyway. Under the darkness of the jacket, as the rushing, rumbling sound from outside grows to a deafening roar, Raven finds Bellamy’s eyes and fixes on them.

     He’s watching her just as steadily. “We’re okay,” he says, and then something else which is drowned out under the noise.

     At first it’s just a light pattering of dirt on the jacket. It gets heavier fast, until it’s a steady stream of debris pouring down on them; shale and pebbles and sticks and mud. A rock strikes Bellamy’s shoulder hard enough to produce a dull thud. He winces, baring his teeth, leaning closer towards Raven. He doesn’t take his eyes off hers, so she doesn’t, either.

     “We’re okay,” she whispers, even though she can’t hear her own voice and Bellamy certainly can’t.

     There are metallic clangs and screeches as rocks strike the rocket and tear strips off the sides. Raven doesn’t see whatever hits the hatch, but she hears it. The bang reverberates throughout the cockpit, loud enough to be painful.

     Immediately afterwards, the flood of debris slows to a trickle. It takes Raven longer than it should to realise what that means. Something’s fallen onto the hatch. Something heavy. Something big enough to stop the dirt from flowing through the hatch. The rocks can’t get in.

     They can’t get _out_.

 

 

     A shadow falls over Monty’s face and he squints upwards until his eyes readjust and Harper’s face comes into clear relief in front of him.

     “Oh, thank god,” he says. Pulling back a little from the hatch, he worms a hand through the tiny gap which is left beside the flat slab of rock that’s fallen on the rocket.

     Harper grabs onto him without hesitation, lacing their fingers together. “Are you okay?”

     “We’re good. We’re all good.”

     “God, Monty, when I saw the rocks start falling…”

     “I know,” Monty says. “Us, too. Are Emori and Nova okay?”

     “Yeah. They’re okay.” Harper squeezes his hand. “How are you going to get out now? If the hatch is blocked then-”

     “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure something out.” Monty manages to sound more confident than he feels. It comes easily, with Harper. Reassuring her has always felt natural. She does the same for him; calms him down and makes him feel secure. Even after their relationship had ended, they’ve stayed close. Very close. Close enough that the thought of losing her, ever, makes Monty feel sick to his stomach.

     Hadn’t that been exactly what he’d been trying to avoid? That was why he’d ended things. He’d wanted to stop relying on Harper. To figure his own life out.

     Funny, how as soon as they’re back on the ground, that stuff all seems really freaking stupid in the face of constant mortal peril.

     “How’s Raven?” Harper asks. “Is she okay to talk? Nova wants to talk to her, but I don’t want her to get scared.”

     “Raven wants to see her, too,” Monty says. “Bring her up.”

     “Okay.” Harper’s thumb strokes once over the back of his hand and then she slips free of his grip and is gone.

     Monty backs up from the hatch. He bumps into Bellamy and turns awkwardly, balanced precariously on the edge of the ladder. The older man grabs Monty and holds him still.

     “Are they okay?” Bellamy asks.

     “They’re good. Nova’s coming up to talk to Raven.”

     Bellamy frowns down at the floor. “Do you think I should tell Emori and Harper to leave?”

     “I don’t know,” Monty says. He steps off the ladder and slumps into the closest seat. Clarke’s empty one; repurposed for Nova, and now decorated with the dangling, broken straps which had caused their crash. “We left the Ring in a hurry. I’m not even sure where we are.”

     “Earth!” Murphy calls across the cockpit.

     Monty rolls his eyes so hard they hurt.

     “You mean we might not be close to Clarke,” Bellamy says. “I know. I was thinking that too. But if we don’t get out of here soon, they’re on their own. They’ve got nothing out there. No rations, no water. They need to find water.”

     “They should leave,” Monty says, quietly. He’s been thinking it for a long time. That doesn’t make the words any easier to say. “It’s better that some of us survive.”

     “Who knows? Maybe they’ll find some way to get us out of here. Emori’s resourceful. Harper’s determined.” Bellamy tenses his jaw. “And Nova - Nova will be safe with them.”

     They all love Nova like she’s their own. Monty knows that for a fact. He also knows that Bellamy feels the responsibility differently to the rest of them. He isn’t sure why, but there’s a darkness in Bellamy’s eyes now, when he talks about letting Nova go, that reminds Monty of when they first got to the Ground. That time when Octavia was all Bellamy cared about. When he put her needs first and couldn’t have cared less about the rest of them.

     “She’ll be okay,” Monty says. “Nova’s smart. She’s Raven’s kid.”

     Bellamy folds his arms across his chest. “Yeah, sure,” he says gruffly, and turns away.

     Okay, so he doesn’t want to talk. Monty gets that. He gets up from the chair, leaves Bellamy alone with his thoughts and steps closer to Raven. She’s out of the harness, finally, rising unsteadily to her feet in the tight, sideways-tilted space of the cockpit.

     Monty holds out his hand. “Come on,” he says.

     “I don’t need help,” Raven mutters.

     “I know.”

     He doesn’t move his hand. After a moment, Raven grabs his arm anyway, hanging on to him for support as she picks her way past the rubble and closer to the hatch.

     The steep angle of the rocket means that the ladder is slanting backwards, rather than straight. When Monty had climbed it, he’d had to hold on tightly to stop himself falling straight off. It’d be harder for Raven, so she doesn’t even try. She settles herself into the seat underneath, instead, and Monty stands beside her. They wait.

     It doesn’t take long before they start to hear scuffling sounds outside, and then voices, and then Nova’s little face appears at the edge of the hatch.

     “Mama?” she asks, peering into the gloom of the cockpit.

     “Right here, baby. Are you okay?”

     Nova says, “Ummm,” drawing the word out, and glances at someone over her shoulder. She turns back and says, “Yeah, I’m okay. When are you coming out?”

     “As soon as I can,” Raven promises. “Harper and Emori are going to take care of you for now.”

     “Can I come back in?”

     “There’s no room, sweetie,” Bellamy says, looking up at her.

     “I’m really small, Baba. I can fit.”

     She sounds so eager. So _hopeful._ Monty says, “Hey, Nova?”

     “What?”

     “You guys can’t come back in, you know, because we need you to go somewhere.”

     “Go where?”

     Bellamy glances at Monty and then back at Nova. “It’s a special mission,” he says.

     “Like Echo’s missions?”

     “Yeah. Exactly like those.”

     “What’s the mission?” Nova asks.

     “You have to go and look for water,” Raven tells her. “And food, and a safe place to live. Once you find it, then we can all come meet you there, okay?”

     “I can find that!” Nova exclaims. “I can find that really quick! I’ll go right now!”

     She starts to squirm away from the hole and Bellamy and Raven both call out together to stop her. For a second, Monty thinks they were too slow, but then the little face reappears.

     “Be careful, Nova,” Bellamy says.

     “Stay with Harper and Emori,” Monty adds. “Make sure you do everything they tell you, okay?”

     “Everything?”

     “Yeah, kiddo,” Raven says. “It’s really important. Promise me.”

     “I promise I’ll do what they say. And I’ll be really brave, too, Mama. I can be so brave.”

     Raven’s voice shakes when she says, “That’s my girl. I love you.”

     “I love you like space,” Nova says, and then she wriggles away from the hatch and this time she’s gone.

     “Like space?” Monty asks. He doesn’t think he’s heard one that before.

     Raven laughs through the tears shining in her eyes. “It goes on forever,” she says.

     Someone else appears at the hatch. Monty can’t see who it is, but then Harper speaks.

     “We’re not leaving you yet,” she says.

     Bellamy shakes his head. “You don’t have time to wait around,” he says firmly.

     “We’re not waiting around, Bell, we’re shifting rocks. If we can get the hatch free again then some of you could come out. Raven, at least. Nova needs her.”

     Raven’s hand tightens on Monty’s arm, fingernails digging in. “Nova’s got you,” she says. “That’s going to have to be good enough.”

     “It won’t take us long!” Harper exclaims. “Some of this stuff is small and light, or badly balanced. We’d just need a couple good shoves to tip that rock off the hatch.”

     Bellamy sighs. “Okay. You can try,” he says. “But not for longer than a half-hour or so. If you haven’t moved anything by then, it won’t happen.”

     “One hour,” Harper says.

     “Fine. When I tell you to leave, you _have_ to leave.”

     “Got it,” Harper says. “You okay down there, Monty?”

     “Never better,” he says.

     “And Echo?”

     Monty checks over his shoulder. “Still bleeding, but she’s conscious,” he reports.

     “I’m okay too, in case you cared!” Murphy yells.

     “Good to know!” Harper calls back. “Stay away from the hatch. We’re getting you out of there.”

 

 

     Nova dances from foot-to-foot, tugging at Emori’s sleeve. “I gotta pee,” she says.

     “So go pee, then,” Emori tells her.

     “How?”

     The question makes Emori laugh. She’s forgotten that Nova doesn’t come from the Ground. She was born in space; she’s only known electric lights and metal floors, algae and recycled water and proper toilets.

     “I can help you,” she says. “Come on, we’ll go a little further away. You shouldn’t pee on the rocket.”

     “But peeing on the ground is really bad,” Nova says, following Emori towards the tree line. “’Cause you know the pee goes into the ‘lectrics.”

     “There aren’t any electrics down here, Nova.”

     “Where’s all the light come from then?”

     “The sun. You know the sun.”

     Nova frowns. “Yeah, but the sun is in space.”

     “It’s still there,” Emori says. She points up. “That’s the same sun.”

     “How’s it in space and here at the same time?”

     “It’s not here. We can just see it. It’s really, really far away.”

     Nova shields her eyes with a hand and squints up. “How come I can’t see home, then?”

     “The Ring’s too small to see. Except at night.”

     “Can we have night now? I’m tired.”

     That makes Emori laugh, too. She loves this; being the one to teach Nova this; hearing all of these questions for the first time. “On the Ground, night doesn’t come whenever we want,” she says. “We have to wait. But if you’re tired you can nap.” They stop beside an old, broad-trunked tree. “Look, this is a good spot. Take your pants all the way off so you don’t pee on them. I’ll help you.”

     It’s a process, but Emori is used to living rough. She’s used to caring for Nova, now, too. The separate parts of her lives blur and come together.

     “Why did Harper say I couldn’t tell Mama about my arm?” Nova asks, when they’re done and Emori is helping to get her pants back on.

     “We don’t want her to be worried.”

     “Why not? She should be worried. My arm is really broken for real.”

     “She’s got lots of other things to worry about right now,” Emori tries to explain. “And a broken arm isn’t such a big deal.”

     “It is too a big deal! It hurts _and_ it’s wonky,” Nova insists.

     “Does it still hurt?” Emori asks.

     Nova shrugs clumsily. “Not so much since Harper gave me the stabbing needle,” she says. “It was a shot, but not like with a gun, you know? Is it gonna be wonky forever?”

     “Your arm?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Maybe. It depends.”

     “Depends what?”

     “How brave you are.”

     “Oh,” Nova says. “That’s easy. I am so so brave.”

     Emori grins and smacks a kiss onto Nova’s cheek. “You are, sweet girl. Come on. Let’s go help Harper.”

     Harper is moving rocks. It’s not that Emori thinks this is pointless - except, she kinda does. Because this is pointless. There are too many rocks and they’re too heavy. The rocket is buried deep. Shifting through the mud and earth to find a peephole into the hatch was one thing. That was easy. This is stupid.

     Emori sits Nova down at the foot of the mountain and then crawls on hands and feet up the steep, slippery slope to Harper’s side.

     “You know this won’t work, right?”

     Harper straightens up and wipes her forehead with the back of her wrist. Her eyes are damp and shiny but her face is determined. “I’ve got to try.”

     Emori presses her lips together and then nods, once. “ _Ogeda_ ,” she murmurs, and reaches for the closest chunk of rock.

     By the time she’s gone up and down twice, Emori’s arms are burning and her back aching. She stops at the bottom for a breather. Her throat is sore and scratchy and her mouth is dry. All they’re doing is making things worse for themselves. This has to stop.

     “Harper!” Emori calls.

     From the woods behind them comes a high, shrill, impossibly loud scream. Emori freezes. Her blood runs cold. She _knows_ that sound. It’s been years, yes, but she could never forget.

     The scream sounds again and Harper skids down the slope of the mountain, puffs of dirt rising around her feet. “Emori! Who is it? Can you see?” There’s excitement in her voice, not fear. She doesn’t know.

     “It’s not who,” Emori says. “It’s what. _Steltstoka_.”

     “What is that? I don’t know that word.”

     The third scream is the one that finally jolts Emori into action. She runs for Nova, sitting beside the first-aid pack. Over her shoulder she calls to Harper, “We have to go! Now!”

     Luckily, Harper doesn’t waste any more time asking stupid questions. She just moves. Emori stops only for a second to pull Nova to her feet.

     “What are we doing?” Nova asks, clinging tight to Emori with her good hand.

     “Running,” Emori says shortly. She slips the pack over one shoulder and tugs at Nova.

     “Why?”

     “No time, _strikon_. Run fast.”

     The only good thing about s _teltstoka_ is that it almost always hunts alone. Sometimes it’ll be in groups of two or three; a mother with her kits. If the kits are younger, that’s okay. They’ll slow their mother down. If they’re older, almost fully-grown, then the race against death gets a whole lot harder.

     “We could climb a tree?” Harper pants.

     “No good. It climbs.”

     “Oh, god. It can’t get in the rocket, can it?”

     Nova starts to cry, suddenly and unexpectedly. She slows down, too, tugging on Emori’s arm. For a second, Emori thinks it’s at the thought of the _steltstoka_ in the rocket.

     “Hey, no,” she says, trying to be soothing. “It can’t get in the rocket, _yongon_ , okay?”

     Nova shakes her head, finally dragging Emori to a stop. “I can’t run, Mori. I hurt so bad.” She bursts into a fresh wave of sobs, real tears streaming down her cheeks. This isn’t just crying for the sake of it. This is real, deep pain.

     Well, of course it’s real. The kid’s been through so much. Her arm is broken. Harper had given her the anaesthetic shot almost an hour ago. It shouldn’t be wearing off yet - but the running has been a step too far.

     “I’ve got you,” Emori says. She grabs Nova under her arms. The girl yelps when she’s lifted, which isn’t a good sign. “I’ll carry you as far as I can.” Emori snugs Nova tight against her chest, folding the girl in as close and safe as she can before she starts to run again.

     The _steltstoka_ has gone quiet, but that doesn’t mean it’s given up. Emori trails behind Harper, hampered by the extra weight, as they round the curve of the mountain. The side where the rocket had crashed is all sloping, loose shale. Damaged by weather and _Praimfaya_. As they move further, though, the rocks start to get bigger and thicker. Long sheets of stone stretch up far above Emori’s head. Too smooth and steep to climb, but that’s okay. She’s not looking to climb.

     _There_. A dark streak down the rockface. It’s not far ahead of them and Emori increases her pace. “Harper!” she calls.

     Harper slows down until they’re alongside one another. “Is it gone? What do you see?”

     Emori sighs with relief. “A way out.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no spoilers, yay! Enjoy :) I should have updated this sooner but I forgot how much of it I already had written lol oops!

     The first cave they find is barely more than a crack in the rock. The second is a wide, shallow scoop in the stone which wouldn’t hide them from anything, let alone whatever this apex predator is that’s got Emori so scared.

     Harper takes Nova into her arms while Emori scouts ahead. The little girl feels heavier than she ever has before. Harper’s back burns white-hot with pain. It’s getting harder to move. The pain is exhausting her. Her legs are as stiff and heavy as lead and every step is a struggle.

     “This one!” Emori yells.

     It’s getting dark, Harper thinks, because she has to squint to make out Emori ahead of her. Everything is turning shades of grey and black. She wants to put Nova down, but just the thought of crouching has her back throbbing in protest.

     The cave Emori has found is broad and deep. It goes so far under the mountain that Harper can’t see the end.

     “It’s too big,” she protests. “Anything could follow us in here.”

     “It narrows,” Emori says. She frowns. “Are you all right?”

     “Yeah.”

     “You look sick.”

     “I’m not,” Harper says. She’s not sick. She’s just cold, really cold, and tired, and the world is closing in around her. Everything is blurry and far away. Carefully, Harper unwinds Nova’s arms from around her neck. “You need to stand, baby,” she says, letting the girl slide down her body to the ground.

     “I want Mama.”

     “We’ll go back and get her soon,” Emori says. “ _Ai swega yu klin_ , Nova.”

     “Promise,” Nova repeats, sniffling. “That means one hundred percent for sure.”

     Harper staggers sideways and catches herself against a rocky wall. The ground tilts beneath her and her head spins.

     “Harper?”

     “Just tired,” Harper says. “Dizzy.” It’s hard to find the right words.

     Emori’s hands are strong on Harper’s shoulders. “Walk,” she says. “We need to go deeper in.”

     Harper goes where she’s led. One step at a time, concentrating on the ground in front of her. Loose rocks tumble under her feet and it’s incredibly hard to stay upright when she can’t seem to find her bearings in the dark of the cave. Without Emori behind her, Harper thinks she would be impossibly lost.

     “Here,” Emori says. “The cave narrows, do you see? Crawl through the gap.”

     Harper stares, because it’s not a _gap_ , it’s a goddamn crevice, tiny and narrow with spikes of rock jutting from the walls on either side.

     “I can’t,” she says.

     “You’ll fit,” Emori tells her. “Turn sideways. Go on.”

     Harper does what she’s told, too tired to argue any further. She presses shoulder-first into the space between the rocky walls and it scrapes against her arm, her hands, her cheek. She tucks her jaw into her shoulder, sucks in the muscles of her abdomen as far as they’ll go. It’s a squeeze. Beyond the crack she can’t see anything but darkness. Harper closes her eyes, and it’s easier that way.

     A jutting spur of rock catches on her back, snagging her shirt and scratching her skin. Harper moans with the pain. It radiates outwards through her whole body and she has to stop moving, panting hard, to try and get through it.

     “Keep going,” Emori says from somewhere behind her.

     Harper’s hands and cheek are pressed up against the cool rock. Her back is stuck on the wall. Her boots shuffle in the dirt.

     “I can’t,” she says through gritted teeth.

     She hears, dimly, Nova’s hitching little sobs. Emori’s voice, distant and fuzzy, saying something to try and comfort the girl. Encourage her on. Nova is so brave - she’s always so brave - and she’s pushing through these rocks with a broken arm and no understanding of the new world she’s suddenly found herself in.

     Harper is blocking their way. She has to keep going.

     Monty, she thinks, will be really proud when he comes to find her. She presses past the rock and cries out when it stabs into her back. The pain is bad enough that she thinks she’ll vomit; but there’s no room to double over and retch, just the mountain holding her upright. She takes another few steps and bursts suddenly out into empty space.

     Without the rock walls on either side, Harper falls. Her hands hit stone and her face hits dirt and she doesn’t care. She can’t force herself to get up. She manages to crawl, pulling her body forward with both arms, sliding along the ground until she thinks she’s far enough away from the crack.

     Someone touches Harper’s face. For a single, painful moment she thinks it’s her mother. It’s not. It’s Jasper, she realises. A long time ago he’d promised to die with her. They would be together, he’d said.

     That’s why he’s here now. Harper’s dying. The thought horrifies her, but she doesn’t have strength to fight it.

     She has to say something. A message. A message for Monty, so that he knows she didn’t mean it.

     It’s too hard to talk when she can’t feel her lips, or her fingers, or the dirt under her cheek. Harper breathes out and hopes the words come too. The world spins apart around her and she finally lets go.

 

 

     “ _Yu ste azen_ ,” Emori murmurs. “ _Jok_.”

     Harper’s skin is cold as ice and even in the dim light of the cave she looks bone-white. Her eyes are closed and her fingers curled into the dirt. She’s sprawled awkwardly on her front, arms and legs flung wide.

     Her lips move. Emori bends closer, putting her ear to Harper’s mouth.

     “Sorry,” Harper whispers.

     “What for?”

     There’s no answer. The tension leeches out of Harper’s body and she goes limp on the dirt floor of the cave.

     Emori stares down at her. What is this? Shock? Fear? It doesn’t seem right.

     Nova crawls towards them. “Mori, my arm,” she whimpers. “Harper, my arm.”

     “I know, I know,” Emori soothes. Absently, she pulls Nova up into her lap. “Shh,” she says, curling her body around the girl and rocking her side-to-side. She doesn’t take her eyes off Harper. There’s a faint - very faint - rise and fall to her chest. She’s alive. For how much longer?

     Emori shrugs the first aid pack off her shoulder and onto the ground. There might be something in there which can help. Carefully, she reaches out again for Harper’s face. Still cold. She feels for one of Harper’s hands in the gloom and squeezes it. It’s like ice. Blood loss, maybe? But bleeding from where?

     “Nova,” Emori says, “I need you to stay here and look after Harper. Can you do that?”

     “N-no,” Nova sniffs.

     “I think you can, brave girl.”

     “So brave,” Nova says.

     “That’s right. You need to keep her safe, okay? And check her arms and legs for me. I think maybe she got… maybe a little cut.”

     “A cut?”

     “Yeah. You have to find it so that we can put a plaster on it.”

     “Why don’t you wake her up and ask her?”

     “She can’t wake up right now.”

     “Why not?” Nova slides off Emori’s lap and kneels in front of Harper. She reaches out her good arm to stroke Harper’s head. “Harper, you okay?”

     It hurts Emori’s heart to watch. She hardens herself up and rises to her feet. “I need to go and look at the cave. Okay?”

     “What’s in the cave?”

     “I don’t know,” Emori says. “I have to find out.”

     “In case of monsters? Is there monsters in the cave, Mori?”

     “I’ll tell you if I find any monsters.”

     “Can you fight them for me? ‘Cause my arm isn’t so good for fighting.”

     “Yeah, sweet girl. I can fight them. You stay with Harper, okay?”

     “Okay.”

     “Look for her cut.”

     “Okay.”

     Emori moves carefully through the darkness, arms outstretched. She feels her way with her feet and keeps her eyes wide, using her peripherals to search; for movement, for a shadow that looks darker than the rest, for a set of gleaming night eyes.

     There’s nothing. The cave isn’t as big as Emori had thought - or hoped. The floor is covered in soft dirt and the walls are dry rock. There’s no moss, no damp air, no trickling water. It had been a long shot, yeah, but Emori had really been hoping they’d somehow find water. Or tunnels, at least; a network of caves to crawl through and thoroughly investigate. This is just nothing.

     The front of the cave has a little more light, bleeding down through cracks overhead. Nova is kneeling beside Harper’s body, her head bowed and her dark hair hiding her face.

     “Are you okay, little one?”

     “I can’t find any cuts,” Nova says, twisting to look up at Emori. “Just a big bruise. You see?”

     She’s got Harper’s shirt rucked up and there’s an ugly purple-and-blue discolouration across the left side of Harper’s lower back, spreading around her body as far as her hip. It’s warm when Emori runs her hand across it; warmer than the rest of Harper is. And the skin feels tight and stretched.

     “Bleeding,” Emori murmurs. “But _inside_.”

     “Bruises aren’t serious hurts,” Nova says.

     “This one is.”

     Nova shuffles back from the body, bringing her good arm up to cradle her broken arm against her body. “How do we wake her up?”

     “I’m working on it, _strikon_ ,” Emori says. She’s drowned out halfway through by screaming from outside. One, two, three screams in quick succession, loud and sharp and close. They sound like a person - like a woman. Emori knows they aren’t.

     Nova whimpers. “What is it?”

     “ _Steltstoka_.”

     “What’s _steltstoka_?”

     “A monster,” Emori says.

     Nova shivers. She crawls closer until she can lean up against the side of Emori’s body. “Like in stories?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Does it eat people?”

     “When it catches them,” Emori says. She pulls the first aid kit towards her and starts to search through it.

     “What about when it catches _us_?” Nova whispers.

     “It can’t get in here, Nova. We’re safe.”

     “What about when we go out of here?”

     “We’re going to stay here for a little while.”

     Nova shivers. “I don’t want to stay here, Mori.”

     “Just for a little while.” Emori’s fingers fumble across what she’s been looking for. Like a knife but smaller; more precise, less deadly. She forgets what Harper called it. She folds her hand around the metal tool. “Aren’t you tired, Novie?”

     “No.”

     “You must be,” Emori says. “Tell you what. I’ll make you a little blanket nest, okay? Like when you have sleepovers in my room with me. You remember?”

     “Yours _and Murphy_ ’ _s_ room,” Nova says. “When is Murphy coming? With Mama and Baba and Echo and-”

     “Soon,” Emori interrupts. “We’re going to wait here for them. But you need to sleep if you want to get big and strong, okay?”

     “And eating. Eating is for big and strong.”

     “Right, but we don’t have any food.”

     “That’s okay,” Nova says, so easily. “We can go back home in the rocketship and get some food when the monster’s gone.”

     Oh, there’s so much she doesn’t understand yet. It hurts somewhere deep inside Emori, to think about what’ll happen when Nova learns that they’re never going home. That she won’t have a routine, or a safe, comforting familiarity. That she maybe won’t ever have her whole family together again. The Ground is not like space. Down here, things happen that they can’t control. Bad things. Things that Emori wishes Nova didn’t have to understand so soon.

     “Come over here,” she says instead. “I’ll build you a little sleeping nest.”

     “Can I have a drink?”

     “We don’t have any water.”

     “Why not?”

     “We haven’t found any yet.”

     Nova frowns. “You don’t _find_ water,” she says.

     Emori shucks her big outer jacket; the one which she’d found on the Ring, which must have belonged to a man much larger than herself. She spreads it over the ground and watches Nova curl up on top. “Is that comfy?”

     “No. There’s no pillows. Or blankets.”

     “Yeah,” Emori says. “I know. This is the best I can do for now, okay?”

     Nova snuggles down deep into her orange sweater. “Okay for now.”

     “Good girl.”

     What it is, Emori thinks, as she crawls back across to Harper, is blood leaking out from the organs and tubes inside and pooling within the body. She knows that can happen. She’s even seen it before. It explains all of the symptoms of blood loss, too; the cold, clammy, too-white skin and the fatigue and the unconsciousness.

     Harper must have been in so much pain. She hadn’t told _any_ of them. She’d just kept going.

     “You’re an idiot,” Emori says softly, smoothing the hair back from the side of Harper’s face and tucking it behind her ear.

     There’s a blanket in the first aid pack - a weird silver one which is thin and crinkly, not like cloth at all. It folds up into a tiny square, but is easily big enough to cover Harper when Emori unfolds it.

     When she’d seen it before - blood inside the body - the man had lost his leg. That’s really not a result that Emori wants to see again, especially because it’s not just Harper’s _leg_ which is bleeding. The blood has to come out somehow, otherwise it just keeps building and building. Of course, _stopping_ the bleeding would actually be ideal, but Emori can’t do that unless she knows where it is. And she doesn’t.

     “Okay,” she says. “Let’s do this.”

     There are coils upon coils of plastic tubing in the first-aid kit. Emori pulls one out and uses her tiny sharp medical knife to cut off a piece the length of her index finger. She stuffs the rest back inside and then she slides the silver blanket off Harper’s side and stares at the mottled purple-black-blue skin.

     “I’m gonna be careful,” Emori tells Harper. It helps a little to say it out loud. Helps Emori, mostly. She touches the sharp edge of the tool to Harper’s skin and remembers, suddenly, what it’s called. Scalpel. A weird, cold-sounding word.

     The skin breaks easily when Emori presses. She has to remind herself to go deep - right through all of the skin and the thin, stretchy stuff beneath that she has to cut away when she skins any animals. When she thinks she’s deep enough - when slippery red blood is spilling out and coating her fingers and the scalpel - Emori presses the plastic tube into the wound. It’s hard to see what she’s doing without proper light, and with all the blood in the way. The tube is slick between her fingers. Emori fumbles twice but she thinks - she _hopes_ \- she gets it right in. Blood drips from the end.

     “That might help,” Emori says, but she doesn’t feel so sure. Maybe letting the blood escape isn’t right. Not when Harper needs blood so badly. If Emori can somehow catch it she can make Harper drink it or… or…

     On the Ring, when she had the baby-that-wasn’t, there had been blood. She doesn’t remember well. She’d been sick and half-dazed and unconscious. But she knows they’d given her blood. All of them had - all of _Skaikru_. And John had explained it to her, later. He’d said because _Skaikru’s_ blood was gold. Something precious, something special. Something which can heal anyone.

     Emori’s blood isn’t the same. She had their blood inside her once, but that was a long time ago. Now, it’s all her own. Not enough gold to help Harper.

     But Nova’s here.

     The thought makes Emori sick. Nova is a child. She’s _their child_.

     And Harper is dying.

     There’s a memory which sticks in Emori’s head. Right after they’d first gotten onto the Ring and they’d all gotten sick. Vomiting and fever and the shakes and coughing violently until they retched. Emori had been the second one to go down with it. She’d hardly known Harper then. Had barely known any of them, except John and Raven. She hadn’t wanted to know them, either. She’d tried to stay out of their way.

     Harper had sat by Emori’s bedside while she was sick. She’d cleaned sweat from Emori’s face and held water to her lips and wiped her mouth each time she vomited. Emori had woken once crying from the pain in her chest and stomach. Harper had rubbed her back and smoothed down her hair, stroking a hand over her head again and again.

     Emori remembers asking her; “Why are you doing this?”

     “Doing what?”

     “Being kind to me,” Emori had said. “You don’t even know me.”

     Harper had been silent for a second. She’d reached out for Emori’s hand and squeezed, hard, and then she’d said, “Maybe I want to.”

     It’s been such a long time since that moment. Emori doesn’t even know if Harper remembers it. For Emori, though, it was the first time she really believed. Believed that some people were truly capable of selflessness. That Harper could do something just to be kind, with no ulterior motive. Harper received nothing in return for her care. She got sick herself, two days later. There hadn’t been any reason for her to take care of Emori. She’d just… done it anyway.

     Emori takes a deep breath.

     “Nova?”

     The little girl sits up right away, cradling her bad arm. “Yeah?”

     “Do you think you can help me with something?”

     Nova crawls across the dirt floor of the cave. Her eyes are wide and dark. “Uh huh,” she says. “I can help with lotsa things.”

     “It’s something really hard,” Emori says. “You need to be really strong.”

     Nova nods seriously. “I’m super strong. I’m a tough cookie.”

     “Yeah, you are. You’re being so brave. Just a little more, okay? _Ai strik-gona_.”

     “Warrior,” Nova says, and she beams. “Echo calls me that too. What do I gotta do?”

     Emori eyes the pile of plastic tubing in front of her. She reaches into the first aid kit for the needles. “I need to take some of your strength,” she says to Nova, “and I need to give it to Harper. And I’m sorry, Novie, but it’s going to hurt.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sure there are still no spoilers in here BUT I do know that by the end of this chapter I'd watched about half of S5. I remember this specifically because I wrote my characters making a big deal saying "whatever it takes" and then it was literally in an episode I watched that afternoon with Clarke and her mum making a big deal out of it and I was pissed at their plagiarism, honestly.  
> I mean I only put it in there because I like the song by Imagine Dragons (it's my ice-bath song of choice, and I have to have a LOT of ice-baths) so like I wasn't being all poetic by myself or anything. BUT STILL. I wrote it before I saw it in the show and I'm still pissed.  
> Haha okay this note was irrelevant enjoy the chapter woo!

     Raven digs her fingernails into the palm of her hand. Monty is slumped in the seat beside her, exhausted from his efforts to shove the rock free of the hatch. They’d all jumped into action when they’d heard the screaming start outside; these awful, bloodcurdling sounds which went on and on and then stopped abruptly.

     “They’re hunters,” Echo says quietly. “Predators. They can snatch a child from the centre of a sleeping village and no one will see or hear a thing.”

     Raven wishes she hadn’t used a child as her example. She glances over at the other woman and when their eyes meet, there’s poorly hidden fear in Echo’s face. She knows what she’s said.

     “What’s it called?” Bellamy asks. “Stall… strike…” He’s never been great at the Grounder language. That was always Clarke’s thing.

     “ _Steltstoka_.”

     “And you’re sure that’s what was screaming?” Murphy asks. “Not one of the girls?”

     “I’m almost sure.”

     “I’ve never heard any animal make a sound like that,” he says.

     Echo holds his gaze. “I have.”

     “It doesn’t matter what it is,” Monty says suddenly. “It’s _out there_ with them and we’re stuck in here.” He drops his head into his hands.

     Raven leans towards him, her cheek pressing against his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “We’re gonna get out there too.”

     “How do you know?” Monty mumbles.

     “Because Nova’s out there. And I’m not going to let anything stop me from getting to her. Nothing. Ever.” The knowledge - the _certainty_ \- burns fierce and hot through Raven’s body. Nova’s life is more important to her than anything else ever has been or ever will be. That’s what Raven understands now. She’d thought it before, on the Ark, watching the baby sleep. Wondering at how quickly this tiny little creature had changed everything. Now that they’re on the Ground, the understanding has solidified within Raven. She’ll do whatever it takes.

     She’d spent so long worrying about being a shit mom, too. Like her own mother. Absolute crap and a waste of space who’d only kept Raven for her own selfish reasons. It was unavoidable, Raven had thought.

     She gets it now. Nova had been born and everything had changed forever. There isn’t a single thing that Raven wouldn’t do to keep that girl safe. Not one.

     Bellamy grunts and then lifts his head. “Hey, Monty. Get over here. I’ve almost got it.”

     “About damn time,” Murphy mutters. He tugs at his leg and says, “Can’t you just lift it another inch?”

     “Yeah, I’m getting to it,” Bellamy says.

     Monty squeezes Raven’s arm and then rises up, taking the couple of steps over to Bellamy. “Calm down, Murphy,” he says. “It’s not like there’s anywhere to go.”

     Raven pinches the bridge of her nose between two fingers. There’s gotta be somewhere to go. There’s always a way out. She just has to see it. If they can pull apart the seats, maybe, and create something new out of the metal scraps and seatbelts. Dismantle the navigation system - they won’t be needing that again - but they’ll still want life support, probably. They can build some sort of machinery, something designed to shift the rocks and blow open the hatch…

     Machinery. A machine.

     They’re in a fucking _rocket._

     “Holy shit,” Raven says.

     The guys don’t seem to hear her; distracted by levering the metal up off of Murphy. Echo’s got her head dropped back against the wall of the rocket and her eyes closed, face tight with pain. It doesn’t matter because Raven doesn’t need their help. This one is all on her.

     She winces at the burn in her bad knee when she rises from the seat, and her limp is even more unsteady than usual when she makes her way back to her own chair. The pilot’s chair. The screen in front of her blinks black at irregular periods when she turns it on. When she says, “Computer,” there’s no reply. The rocket isn’t doing so hot. Neither are the rest of them.

     It doesn’t matter. The system Raven needs is all manual. It’s only supposed to be used in the most dire of emergencies. It’ll fuck up the rocket for good, but that’s okay. They won’t need it again. They’re home now.

     She trawls through the list of computer commands until she finds the one she wants. _Cargo Bay Ejection_. Raven selects the option and a big red blinking warning comes up on the screen. _Emergency Use Only. Emergency Use Only._

     “This is an emergency, stupid,” Raven mutters. She ignores the warning and turns the thrusters at the bottom of the cockpit up to maximum. All she has to do now is say the word. The cargo bay will blow off the rocket - fast and hard, and if they’re lucky it’ll clear a path straight through the rubble. If they’re not lucky, it’ll be the cockpit which moves, and they’ll have their second crash of the day. Not exactly ideal. But they’ve gotta be lucky sometime.

     “Got it!” Bellamy exclaims loudly from behind her.

     “Thank fuck,” Murphy says.

     And then Bellamy says, “Raven? What are you doing?” which probably means he’s noticed the giant flashing red letters on the screen in front of her.

     Raven twists sideways out of the pilot’s chair. The seatbelt in that one is ruined. She manoeuvres herself to Harper’s empty seat instead. “You guys better buckle up.”

     “Uh, why?” Murphy asks. “What are you doing?”

     Monty scrambles into the seat beside Raven and tightens the straps across his chest. Bellamy stops by Echo to make sure she’s secure before he goes for his own seat. It’s just Murphy left standing in the middle of the floor, resting awkwardly with his weight off his previously trapped leg.

     “Computer,” Raven says.

     Murphy says, “Oh shit,” and dives for the seat closest.

     Raven curls her hands into fists. “Eject cargo bay.” The computer isn’t speaking anymore, but Raven knows what it will be saying. She forces herself to count off five slow, careful breaths. Then she says, “Confirm.”

     The rocket blows apart.

 

 

     Bellamy’s neck snaps forward and back with the impact and his muscles wrench painfully. The breath is knocked out of him when the straps around his chest pull tight, keeping him stuck against the seat. Fortunately their air-time is short. The cockpit doesn’t bounce or roll, just shoots upwards and then lands hard. They’re upside-down. The blood rushes to Bellamy’s head and he looks around slowly. No one looks seriously injured - or, no worse than they were already. They’re all dangling from their seatbelts, heads down and feet up.

     “That was the _worst_ fucking plan,” Murphy says. He tugs angrily at his belt. “How are we supposed to get out now?”

     Raven shrugs. “I was hoping it would be the cargo bay that moved,” she says. “I guess the cockpit wasn’t as tightly wedged as we thought.”

     “Oh, _we_ thought? We came up with this shit idea as a group, did we?”

     “It’s all right,” Bellamy says quickly, before the two of them can escalate. One thing he’s learnt over the past five years is that Murphy and Raven never seem to get tired of going at it. They can argue as long as there’s air around them. “We’ll get out through the trapdoor to the cargo bay.”

     “Oh, right, because it’ll be so easy to get out through a trapdoor that’s over our goddamn heads,” Murphy snarls.

     “Shut up and climb the walls, cockroach,” Raven says.

     “Yeah, Raven, the name-calling is really helping this shit.”

     Bellamy catches Monty’s eye. Monty shrugs. It’s not his responsibility.

     “Okay, _stop_ ,” Bellamy snaps. He fumbles with his seatbelt until the clasp releases. Hanging onto the straps, Bellamy carefully turns himself the right way up and drops down to stand on the remains of the nosecone. “Can we please just get out of here?”

     One-by-one, they unsnap their belts and clamber down to the new bottom of the cockpit. Echo is slower than the rest of them. Her cheeks are a sickly pale colour and the blood is still oozing from her head. She slips on her way down from the seat and drops to the ground harder than she should, landing heavily on her side.

     Bellamy crouches down next to her. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly.

     “I’ll be fine,” she says.

     She gets her legs under her but wobbles when she tries to stand. Bellamy slides an arm around her waist, holding her up. Echo looks over and he thinks she’s going to say something - a protest, maybe - except then she bends over, puts her hands on her knees and vomits.

     Murphy helpfully says, “Ew, gross.”

     Bellamy rolls his eyes and keeps hanging onto Echo until she finishes and straightens up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

     “I think you’re concussed,” he says.

     “What?”

     “You’ve got a concussion.”

     Echo stares at him, uncomprehending. “I don’t know that word.”

     “You hit your head too hard.”

     Raven says, “Bell. Can you reach the trapdoor?”

     Bellamy glances up. “Almost, but not by myself,” he says. “Monty can get out first.”

     Raven nods. “Okay. I’ll take Echo.”

     Echo’s leaning against him quite heavily now. Bellamy hands her off to Raven and makes sure the two of them are steady before he laces his fingers together into a stirrup and offers it to Monty.

     Monty looks up at the trapdoor. “Don’t drop me,” he says, grabbing Bellamy’s shoulder. He puts his foot into Bellamy’s hands and steps upwards. It hurts. Bellamy grits his teeth and locks out his elbows.

     “I can reach it,” Monty reports. He jams his knee into Bellamy’s head. “Oops, sorry. I can almost open it, hang on.”

     Bellamy stands as firm as he can, and then there’s a clunk and a bang as the trapdoor falls open. Monty’s weight suddenly gets less, and then his legs are kicking in the air and he’s scrambling up and out of the cockpit.

     It’s slow but steady after that. They get out one at a time; Raven next, and then Echo, clumsier and weaker than Bellamy’s ever seen her before. Murphy is next to last and it takes the combined efforts of him, Monty and Raven to haul Bellamy up. They’re all sweating and aching and tired by the time it’s done, but they’re out. They’re back on the Ground.

     The light stabs at Bellamy’s eyes and he winces and shields them with a hand when he squints up and around them. The mountain is behind them, all craggy rocks and reddish dirt. No grass or trees. Half of the rocks are loose, spilling down in a long slope towards the bottom, where the mangled remains of the rocket are sitting.

     To Bellamy’s left and right it’s just desert. Dead, empty earth covered in dust and sand and probably radioactive waste. This is what most of the planet looks like. He knows - he’s seen it from space. There are the oceans; not so blue anymore, and then there are the blurred outlines of barren red continents, scorched earth that’s damaged beyond repair.

     But ahead of him there’s a forest. It looms directly in front of all of them, short brown grass and towering green trees. Fallen leaves littering the ground in a carpet that’s years thick. Bushes and tangled brambles and vines crawling across the tree trunks. A proper, genuine forest. Small and isolated and impossibly alive in this wasteland.

     For an endless, awed minute, they all just stare.

     Murphy breaks the silence. “Do you think this is it?” he asks. “Clarke’s green valley?”

     “No,” Raven says. “I don’t know exactly where we landed, but I saw the Earth when we took off. There’s no way we’re anywhere near the east coast.”

     Bellamy frowns. “Are we even in the United States?”

     “I think so,” she says.

     “I hope so,” Murphy says. “I really hate boats.”

     Monty scuffs his shoes through the dirt. “We need to go after the girls,” he says, arms tight by his side and jaw tense.

     “How are we supposed to know which way they went?” Murphy demands. “And where’s that thing Echo said was out here? _Steltstoka?_ ”

     Bellamy’s a little surprised to hear the Trigedasleng word drop out of Murphy’s mouth so smoothly. He supposes he shouldn’t be. After all, Emori’s the only thing Murphy ever takes seriously. Her language probably comes as part of the package.

     Emori and Harper couldn’t have gotten far. Not with Nova with them. They’ve got to be as exhausted and unsteady as Bellamy feels right now - or worse. It would be so easy to just pick a direction and start walking.

     He glances over the rest of the group and stops at Echo. She’s swaying where she stands, chin drooping to her chest. Black blood is matted in her hair and there are dark red stains on her clothes, hands and arms. There are still fresh rivulets trickling from the wound, spilling down and across Echo’s face, joining the older channels of dried blood.

     Logically, Bellamy knows that head wounds bleed a lot. He can see the gash in her forehead and understand that, although it’s very deep, it’s also superficial. They’ve all dealt with worse. It’s not what’s on the outside that’s worrying him.

     “Echo,” he says.

     She doesn’t raise her head to look at him. _This_ is what’s holding Bellamy back. This is why he doesn’t want all of them to traipse off on a wild goose chase.

     Raven touches Bellamy’s elbow lightly. “Bell.”

     “She can barely stand,” he says quietly.

     Raven nods. “I know. And I can barely walk.” She blows out a long, unsteady breath. “I’ll stay with her, okay?”

     Bellamy turns towards her and looks her full in the face. “Are you sure?”

     “No,” Raven says. “But it’s the smart thing to do. Using our heads, not our hearts, right?”

     “But Nova-”

     “Nova’s got you.” Raven squeezes his forearm. “You know that, don’t you? She’s yours, Bell.”

     He’s wanted to hear it for so long - more than hearing it, he wants to _act like it_ \- but somehow the first thing he finds himself saying is, “But Finn… I mean, she could be-”

     “Oh my god, Bellamy, listen to what I’m saying. I’m not talking DNA. She’s yours.”

     Bellamy stares down at her and understands, suddenly and completely, what she’s trusting him with. “If you’re not sure,” he whispers, “you don’t have to.”

     “I’m sure.”

     “It’s your choice,” Bellamy says. “It’s always been your choice. I never wanted to force it.”

     “I know,” Raven says. Her fingers curl into his arm and she looks straight up at him. Her eyes are wet. “You’ve always treated her like she was yours, though.”

     Bellamy nods. “Yeah,” he says. His voice comes out husky and he clears his throat.

     “Yeah,” Raven echoes. One corner of her mouth tilts upwards into a half-hearted smirk. “Also, that’s not _my_ stupid, curly, impossible-to-brush hair on that kid.”

     His chest aches. “I’ll bring her back to you,” he promises. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this wasn't finished but it was. Hahahahaha I'm so lazy about posting. I was also too lazy to edit this soz for mistakes, people still reading! <3 you guys.

     Harper’s head throbs painfully every time she takes a breath. Her mouth is so dry that her lips have gummed together. She pulls them apart and slowly turns to the side. The movement is enough to send the world spinning around her. The pain spikes and Harper holds her breath and waits for it to pass.

     Cold fingers brush her cheek. “Are you awake?”

     Harper squints up. “Nova?” she rasps.

     “Are you okay?” Nova wriggles closer and gives Harper a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “I was really worried. You needed so, so much blood, until I felt really sick.”

     The sentence bounces around Harper’s head and doesn’t settle. She can’t make sense of it yet. She can’t find any questions to ask, either, so instead she holds out one drooping, exhausted arm and says, “Come here.”

     “Okay,” Nova agrees easily, and she crawls under Harper’s arm and snugs herself tight against Harper’s body. “You can go back to sleep,” she says.

     That sounds good. Harper closes her eyes and lets herself go.

     She dreams of her parents. Of a time when she was small enough to think that they would protect her forever. All the promises they’d ever made; that they would always be with her, that she would be happy, that nothing bad would ever happen to her. All lies, but they’d made Harper feel so impossibly _safe_.

     Her eyes open more easily this time, with the dream fresh in her mind. She stares up at the little cracks of light in the rocky ceiling overhead. God, what she wouldn’t give to feel that safe again.

     A drop of water trembles on the rocks above until it collects and falls onto Harper’s forehead. She raises a hand to wipe it away and a second drop lands on her wrist.

     “Nova,” she whispers. Gently, she brushes the hair back from Nova’s face and rubs her hand over the child’s cheek and neck. “Wake up, baby girl.”

     “What?” Nova mumbles. She curls closer to Harper’s side. “I feel sick.”

     “I know,” Harper murmurs. “We need to go outside, sweetheart. It’s raining.”

     Those are the magic words. Nova sits bolt upright in an instant, fatigue forgotten, broken arm clutched tight to her side. “ _Raining?”_

     Harper feels a smile tugging at her lips, fighting through the pain and the fear and the exhaustion. A real smile. “Yep,” she says. “Raining.”

     “Let’s go!”

     Sitting up sends a flare of agony through Harper’s lower back, but she manages it. Standing is worse, and she almost gives up when she’s faced with the narrow passageway out of the cave. The thought of squeezing through that again…

     “Nova,” Harper says suddenly, “where’s Emori?”

     “She had to go out. She said we needed food and water and she would find some.” Nova hunches her shoulders. “She made me stay here because I felt sick after giving you all the blood.”

     “You gave me blood?”

     “Yeah, to make you better,” Nova says.

     God, that’s a horrifying thought. Taking blood from an innocent - from a _child_. It’s as bad as Mount Weather. How desperate must Emori have been, to risk hurting the little girl?

     “Thank you,” Harper says softly. “You’re very brave.”

     “I’m so brave. My arm hurted, but Mori gave me a medicine and it felt better.”

     “How does it feel now?”

     “Okay,” Nova says. “Not good to move.”

     “Good idea, baby girl, don’t move it. Can you get out of the cave, do you think?”

     Nova tips her head on one side to consider it. “Um, yeah,” she says eventually. “How about you?”

     “I can, too,” Harper says, sounding way more confident than she feels. “Let’s get ready to go.”

     Harper spreads out the heating blanket from the first aid pack before she gets to her feet, placing it carefully beneath the cracks in the roof of the cave. If any more rain leaks through, it will collect on the foil surface of the blanket.

     It’s quicker sliding through the narrow crevice this time. Harper goes first and Nova follows behind her and by the time both of them are through, the rain is already distracting them. They can hear it. They can _smell_ it. Harper had forgotten how good rain smells.

     “It’s the same as a giant big shower! Like in the stories!” Nova exclaims as she runs to the cave entrance. The rain is still light, but Nova shrinks back anyway, unsure. “Does it burn?”

     “Black rain,” Harper says. “I don’t think so, but I’ll go out first, if you like.”

     Nova slides her little hand inside Harper’s and clings tight. “I’m coming with you,” she says.

     They step out from the overhang together. Cold drops soak through Harper’s hair and roll down her cheeks. She takes a deep, steadying breath, and looks down at Nova. The little girl’s face is upturned, mouth open, tongue hanging out. Her eyes are sparkling.

     “You like it?” Harper asks.

     Nova closes her mouth and nods rapidly. “I love it! It’s all over everywhere water!” She presses herself against Harper’s side and winds her arms around Harper’s hips. “Thank you.”

     Harper laughs. “I didn’t make the rain, baby girl.” She wants to hoist Nova up and into her arms, but there’s a throbbing in her back which tells her that would be a bad idea. Instead, Harper goes down onto her knees in the mud, slow and careful. She holds Nova tightly and both of them tip their heads back and drink in the rain.

 

 

     The dirt turns to sludge beneath Emori’s questing fingers. If they didn’t all need this rain so much, she’d be furious. Instead, she’s holding back her cursing, she’s made a rain-fill hollow in the ground beside herself and lined it with her head-wrapping, and she’s digging down through brown slop instead of proper earth.

     There are no trees. Not as far as Emori can see. There are dead black trunks standing like grave markers over the remnants of the forest. She hasn’t heard a single bird. Around her, the rain strikes dully against the ground. No pattering of drops on leaves. No water rushing over rocks and trickling through thick bushes. It’s like the desert all over again. A barren wasteland full of skeletons.

     Luckily, Emori knows exactly how to survive in a dead world. This isn’t new to her. This is hard and dangerous and exhausting and _routine_.

     Her fingers strike something hard and Emori smirks, clawing under the tuber and pulling it to the surface. It’s beet-shaped, white and starchy and larger than any she’s seen before. Perfect. _Taysos_   taste like shit, but they’ll fill a stomach quick. They store water, too, and it can be squeezed out looking milky white and smelling foul, but still drinkable. It’s like Monty had said, up in space when they were eating that first brutal batch of algae. Survival’s no picnic.

     It’s right as Emori is lifting the _tayso_ out of the mud that she feels something moving in the hole she’s just dug. Not a plant. Not just sand shifting. Something _alive._

     Emori moves fast, yanking her hands out of the hole, but the thing moves faster. As she stands up there’s a horrible high-pitched squealing and then a muted stab of pain shoots through her claw-hand. It’s not like her other hand - it doesn’t feel anything the same way. Not pain, not touch, and the skin is hard like a shell.

     That’s probably what stops the worm-thing from digging in further. It’s got massive jaws, spread wide and buried deep into Emori’s flesh. It’s got a writhing, wiggling body hanging behind, squirming and struggling to eat its way right into her hand.

     “ _Jok_ ,” Emori swears. “Get off!” She tucks the _tayso_ under her good arm and runs, stumbling, across the mud and towards the closest skeletal tree trunk. She smashes her claw-hand into the wood again and again, crushing the worm between her and the tree until it finally stops wriggling. Its jaws are still clamped deep and there’s a thin trickle of Emori’s blood spilling from underneath now.

     She doesn’t waste time prying the dead body loose. Instead, Emori looks down and sees the mud writhing and churning around her. She realises what she’d missed before. This wasteland isn’t the same desert she’s used to. _Praimfaya_ has changed the things that live here. This Earth can kill.

     Harper and Nova will be safe in the cave. Emori needs to get herself off the ground. She’s backed up against a tree but the trunk is thin and spindly and there are no low branches. Frantically, she scans the other dead trees around here. Plenty of weak pines and saplings that had died before they’d had a chance to grow strong. Nothing that Emori can see which will hold her weight.

     Okay. So she’ll run. Leave the rain-fill hole but take the _tayso_. She folds her five fingers tightly around the skinny root trailing from the bottom of the tuber and runs. The worm’s body dangles from her claw-hand and mud sinks beneath her boots, sucking her down. Where had the worms even come from? Do they live beneath the sand? _All_ the sand? That’s the part which worries Emori. They can’t fight an enemy which is everywhere. They can’t escape a predator lurking under every footstep.

 

 

     Nova shivers in Harper’s arms.

     “Are you cold, baby girl?”

     “No,” Nova says firmly. “I want to stay in the rain.” Her skin has turned waxy pale and her lips are tinged with dark blue. Her eyes are still bright and eager, dark lashes clumped together with water.

     “I think we need to go back inside now,” Harper says. “Getting wet makes you cold, Novie.”

     “Are you cold?”

     “A little.”

     “Only a little?”

     “I’m bigger than you,” Harper says. When she stands up her knees creak and her back spasms with the effort. God, it’s like she’s sixty years old already. “Come on, baby.” She holds Nova’s hand tight and pulls the girl with her back into the cave.

     There’s a high-pitched _screeeeeee_ ; a squealing, whining sound that sets Harper’s teeth on edge. She spins around just in time to see something like a fish - or a snake, maybe? - burst out of the mud and hurtle through the air before it falls just behind them. The thing flops on the damp, rocky floor of the cave and it squeals the whole time. Harper stares at it. It’s got a long, worm-like body and massive jaws which are decidedly _not_ like a worm’s. The thing writhes and wriggles and squeals and Harper shudders.

     “What’s that?” Nova asks. She’s already moving forwards.

     Harper catches Nova by the hood of her sweater and pulls her back sharply. “Don’t go near it,” she says. “I think it bites.”

     “What’s it called?”

     “I dunno.” Harper holds Nova close against her. “I’ve never seen one before.”

     Nova gazes out through the mouth of the cave. “Hey, look,” she says, pointing. “There’s more.”

     Harper looks through the grey curtain of the rain. The mud is seething with them; scaly bodies twining over one another, digging under the ground and leaping up through the surface. Whatever they are, Harper doesn’t want to be this close to them. The one which had jumped into the cave is already flopping around more smoothly - more _purposefully_. It’s squirming menacingly towards her and Nova. Harper backs up a few steps, pulling the little girl with her.

     “Let’s go, okay?” she says. “Back into the proper cave.”

     “Maybe we can catch one and eat it,” Nova suggests. “That’s what you do on the Ground, you know. Catch stuff and eat them.”

     Privately, Harper thinks these things are more likely to eat _them_. “I don’t think these are for eating.”

     They start squeezing back through the chasm. Nova goes first and she slips and slides and has to grab onto the rock to steady herself.

     “It’s all slimy,” she says. “The ground is slimy.”

     Harper squints down into the gloom at the bottom of the chasm. “It’s a plant, I think,” she says. “Like moss or something.”

     “What’s moss?”

     Harper’s not really sure. “Like algae, kinda.”

     Nova tips her head to one side. “So we can eat _this_?”

     “Uh. Maybe, actually. I don’t know.” Harper holds out her hand to help Nova stand up. “We’ll ask Emori when she gets back. Try not to step on too much of it.”

     Nova creeps through the chasm with an exaggeratedly careful tiptoe like some sort of strange dancer. Harper follows with some effort. She tries to think about the moss and maybe eating it and not think about _when_ Emori will be back. Or if Emori will run across those creepy mud-worms. They’re probably harmless. They’re so small. Harper can’t imagine Emori being scared of something like that. The woman survived down on Earth alone for _years_. Weird worms with giant teeth are probably no big deal to her. Just another day on the Ground.

     But there’s a sinking feeling in Harper’s chest.

 

 

     After a while, the worms stop coming. They stop leaping out of the soft ground, jaws snapping, missing Emori’s body by inches. They stop burrowing beneath the earth, churning the mud into little hillocks as they pass.

     Emori doesn’t stop running. Her breath scrapes and rattles in her throat and her chest feels uncomfortably tight but she keeps going. Her calves burn with the effort of pushing through the sticky mud. The rain trickles down the back of her shirt and plasters her hair to her face and the _tayso_ hangs heavy by her side, banging against her thigh with every other step.

     She’s tired and more scared than she ever has been before on the Ground. It’s not enough anymore to be alone and running. She can’t just focus on her own survival. She’s scared for John and Monty, Bellamy, Raven and Echo. All of these people she hadn’t even dreamt of ten years ago and now suddenly can’t imagine living without. Harper and Nova, too, who are Emori’s responsibility now. Her job to look after them. Her purpose to keep them safe.

     It’s not a good feeling. It’s not that soft, warm, _protected_ feeling that she used to get on the Ring; when John held her or Harper laughed with her or Echo flashed her a rare smile. Now she just feels impossibly terrified. It’s so much worse with all these little pieces of her heart living outside her body.

     The rain is a wavering grey curtain that Emori struggles to see through. There’s water in her eyes and mud splashed on her cheeks. She can make out the tall rocky side of the mountain, but it’s too damp and dark for her to spot the landmarks which will lead her to the cave.

     There’s a black gap in the rocky wall nearby. It might be the right cave. It might not. Emori squints, trying to get a glimpse of anything more familiar.

     A worm-thing launches out of the ground beside her. Its slimy body brushes past Emori’s forearm and she jerks backwards and sideways instantly. Her ankle twists and she falls hard, landing face-down in the mud.

     She’s back up again within seconds, wiping the muck from her eyes, trying to figure out which way to run. She hears another worm-thing squeal from behind her and she jolts into action. No time to stand around searching. She sees the black crack in the mountain and runs straight for it.

     The rain stops abruptly as soon as she’s between the towering stone walls. Emori moves three body-lengths into the cave before she feels safe from the worm-things. She drops the _tayso_ to the ground between her feet and bends over, bracing her hands on her knees and drawing in huge gulps of air.

     When she’s feeling a little more steady, she looks up and around the cave and realises very quickly that she’s made a mistake. It’s very similar to the cave where she’d left Harper and Nova; the same shape, and the same size. But it’s not the right cave - because _this_ cave is piled high with mangled skeletons.

**Author's Note:**

> No but for reals, now all I wanna do is write alien planet stories and I am very upset that I hobbled myself by writing so much of this fic before I watched S5. I was really proud because I was like, "Ooh I've written three and a half super long chapters already, and I will be able to update semi-regularly and it will be GREAT and I'll just wait till I finish the show to post in case there are spoilers!" Huge mistake, guys. Because I've got too much content to delete and I am too lazy to go through and play alien planet.  
> Here's what we're gonna do! I will finish this in a timely fashion (lolz yeah right) and then if you're all feeling hopeful and enthusiastic and the next season of the show hasn't absolutely changed my mind (and this time I am going to watch it BEFORE I write 13k words I swear) we will go for a Nova trilogy and play alien planet together! Woo!
> 
> Also real quick I'm super disappointed about the total waste of Harper and Monty as characters in S5. Enjoyed pretty much all of the rest of S5 - although interestingly I do feel like this was one season of The 100 which would've actually benefitted from more episodes - and the musical was phenom, wow, they really stepped up their game there. But I'm bummed about Harper and Monty. And a handful of other things. Madi was a lot more fun than I thought.   
> How about everyone else? Sound off in the comments!


End file.
